


Tethered

by TriffidsandCuckoos



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Angst, Daemon Settling, Daemons, Gen, Manifestation of Jon's spider trauma, Pre-Canon, References to daemon separation, Short One Shot, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29321319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriffidsandCuckoos/pseuds/TriffidsandCuckoos
Summary: Jon's daemon cannot possibly be a spider, no matter what form she takes when he's eight.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Georgie Barker & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Original Non-Human Character
Comments: 17
Kudos: 93





	Tethered

**Author's Note:**

> Written in one sitting from the thought 'hey what if your daemon manifested your trauma'. It's a day with a Y in it, must be time to torture Jonathan Sims.

For years after Jon reads that book, years and _years_ , his daemon never changes. No matter how much he screams; no matter how much he cries; no matter how much he does nothing at all. Everyone decides that she’s settled. Everyone – teachers, bullies, his grandmother – thinks that _that_ is who he is, really. That he is spindly legs and manipulation and deep terrible hunger.

"Why are you doing this to me?" Jon asks.

Sofia replies, "Why are you doing this to me?" 

Eight eyes blinking, on a body large enough for all to be visible. She couldn't be a normal-sized spider, oh no. A tarantula would have been better, even - the kind of spider you can still find in books. He tells everyone she’s a knockdoor spider, a branch from one of the trapdoor families, who hunts by waiting for prey to investigate her doors and devours them in individual bloody pieces. By that point people stop asking, assuming they didn't already assume that Jon knows more than them about this useless area of knowledge. Nobody seems to realise or care that Jon’s made it up. 

"Can't you be a different spider?"

"Can't I be a different spider?"

She's not venomous. That would have been useful. No, she leaps distances many times her size and bares her fangs and flexes her legs with their pinching talons and Jon is terrified of her. He flinches every time she moves; recoils when she seeks a place on his arm, his shoulder, anywhere on him. If she taps for his attention, his skin crawls. Webs hang all around his grandmother's house until the day he leaves, her elegant angry tomcat swiping at them with claws outstretched, and part of Jon longs for the day when that destruction finds a web that hasn’t been abandoned. Sofia is monstrous in the most literal sense to him. Sometimes he has nightmares about the door, and sometimes he has nightmares about her.

"Stop it."

"Stop it."

Nobody wants to give a child books on daemon separation and so he has to hunt, through the library in the city and following the trains into London. The Bodleian Library is immensely aggravating to attempt to access when you aren’t a student of its precious university, so Jon chooses a subject and fights his way into Oxford. He knows enough to get by – more than enough – and when he has to read books he has no interest in to keep his professors sated, well, Sofia scares him enough to do that too. They both wanted the answers.

"You're hurting me."

"You're hurting me."

Really, the wonder with Georgie is that the two of them ever convinced her that they’re okay. She realises eventually, but for a while there they can pretend it’s the usual stress of a university demanding its students rip their hearts out in tribute. She decides in freshers’ week they'll be friends because of their 'horror movie souls,' and Jon and Sofia agree to play a part for her. Ridiculous, though: a spider is a deceitful predator; a bat is just a dog with wings. Not the same at all. The company helps, though, more than he expected.

"Be more like him."

"Be more like her."

There’s no way he can ever know what finally tips Georgie off. It could have been a slow realisation, points of evidence accumulated steadily over time, or perhaps one day she sees Jon flinch or hiss or bat away Sofia before he realises it’s her. Regardless, Georgie wants to talk about it and Jon does not. It’s no surprise when she makes the connection to why he knows so much about daemon separation, the intricate rituals of stretching and the research into witches, and Jon can't listen to the reasons why he shouldn't keep trying. She settles in Oxford while he pursues his Masters (he needs to keep looking); when he discovers the Magnus Institute – when his paltry CV and pathetic cover letter somehow earn him an interview – he doesn't tell her he's going.

"You have to try harder."

"You have to try harder."

He loathes London, truth be told. It's no seaside town and that's the best he can say about it. Still, with some research he finds that it is possible to find certain areas which don't make him want to claw his skin off, albeit not in the vicinity of Chelsea. That's alright. They can make it work. For once, Sofia’s form comes in useful, tucking into the smallest possible space on the tube. If he's screaming about her legs scratching, hyperaware of her every movement, then he's not thinking about all the people all around packed in tighter than battery chickens. This is the next logical step, he tells himself. He can put in the work to be an academic or he can go where the books might not be locked away behind the same kind of defences. Research: it's what he does already.

"I want to die."

"I want to die."

The interview is...strange. Sofia quivers on his shoulder the moment he enters the Institute, skittering and leaping down into his bag, where he prefers her to stay. For once, though, she does. She only emerges again when Mr Bouchard asks to see her. It's invasive and awful but Mr Bouchard already knows that Jon is interested in daemons; has already mentioned all sorts of texts in the library that Jon thought had been destroyed more than a century ago. They’ve done worse things to themselves over the years, he thinks – that is, until she's pinned by gleaming eyes and in a second Jon feels himself flayed open, laid bare, all without Mr Bouchard ever looking at him. All of a sudden, it's like he's eight again, and she's his soul again. And Mr Bouchard asks them whether they're scared.

"Yes."

"Yes."

Mr Bouchard's hawk snaps at her, the predation obvious. She tries to leap away, but Jon stops her - cups his hands and forces her to stay, to see what happens. He has no idea whether she will die - it seems unlikely that the Institute is in the habit of murdering its prospective staff - yet he feels on the cusp of something. There is fear in his heart and for once it is not of losing his will, but of what he might do if left to his own devices. He fears what he might be capable of. What he might be seen to do.

"What do you want?" Jon asks, mouth dry.

Leaning forwards on his desk, Mr Bouchard asks, "What do _you_ want?"

Jon doesn't want his daemon. Jon doesn't want to be like this. Jon doesn't –

The answer is there, blooming inside his head like a flower, like a bruise: "I want to know."

And she changes.

Jon leaves that day with a moth resting in his hair, where she can sense everything around her, antennae quivering and eye-spotted wings fluttering in the false London winds. He doesn't recognise her species, but that's alright. He's here to learn.

"I want to know everything," Jon tells her.

"You want to know everything," she replies.


End file.
